Just when I thought the nightmare was over and I might only be separated from my family for a month at the most, now the possibility of reunification is back in question.
Visa Idiocracy In Action
If you follow my blog, you may know I've been stranded in South America for three years with my Cambodian family. I'm an American citizen, and my wife and kids are Cambodian citizens, and this simple fact has kept us stuck in Suriname three years longer than we've wanted to be here.
Ironically, we left Cambodia to get an internationally recognized marriage so we'd have more rights and better chances of staying together and traveling together. Ever since we left we've been fighting just to stay together thanks to COVID-19 and the stupid new migration/immigration bureaucracy it has created. I have been unable to return to Cambodia thanks to visa policy changes, and as a last resort we attempted US Immigration, which also failed miserably.
In Suriname we have been wasting our potential talent and creativity, unable to thrive here due to a lack of social living, xenophobia, a high cost of living, the inability to find work locally with a livable wage, and many other factors. In 7 days my family will return to Cambodia without me due to our youngest daughter's approaching passport expiration and their desire to go back. I've been long awaiting Cambodia's visa reopening, although it's not as open as the government originally said it would be.
Getting Accustomed To Failure
I was so excited for a return to relative normalcy concerning Cambodia's visa policy, which in 2010 when I arrived to escape poverty in the USA, was as simple as choosing "E" or "T" at the airport or land border crossing. "T" for tourism, which could only be renewed a few times before having to leave the country, and working was prohibited, and "E" for employment, which costs only a few bucks more, but could be infinitely renewed for one-year terms, plus it gave you the ability to find work if you fell in love with Cambodia and wanted to stay.
This wild-west no questions asked working visa is what lured me, an uneducated and unqualified day laborer, to Cambodia in 2010. Back in those days almost nobody chose the "T" visa because it was inferior, and if you only intended to travel for 4 months, the "E" visa was the better choice. The announcement that the "E" visa was available again (although this time online only) gave me hope for a return to the life we lost so many years ago, and a chance to re-enter Cambodia and establish residency once again.
Crushed
Fast forward to today, I decided to hop online and give the Cambodian e-Visa website a dry-run, and well, I was deflated immediately. After selecting the United States for "Country of Nationality" and heading over to the "Visa Type" section, a pop-up appeared letting me the know "E" visa is only available Taiwanese Nationals, strangely, a country whose flag is even illegal (along with the Tibetan flag) in Cambodia thanks to Hun Sen's pledge of allegiance to China.
In perfect Cambodian English I am recommended to "change my country of nationality," and I can't help but find the humor in that. I then checked the "T" visa out of curiosity, only to see it's a available as a one-month plus one-month extension, then it's dead, unable to to convert to a residency or different category.
I am now back to desperately searching for sponsors just like I was two years ago when we began the US Immigration process after realizing a return to Cambodia was going to be nothing short of impossible. As of now I can only visit my family for two months a year once they're back in Cambodia, and understandably, my wife doesn't want to leave again after all the bad experiences abroad we've had.
This 'Merican now returns to the USA with a big question mark, just as uneducated and unqualified for the workforce as I was when I left and headed to Cambodia to escape poverty. The irony is not lost on me that I will soon be back to where I started in 2008, working minimum wage jobs 60 hours a week with hopes to buy a one-way ticket out of the USA, only now I will be older and without my family.
](https://peakd.com/@justinparke/posts)[**CLICK HERE TO JOIN HIVE AND START EARNING CRYPTO LIKE US**](https://hiveonboard.com?ref=justinparke)
 |
 |
🙏 GIVE THANKS 🙏 |
 |
 |
|---|
Return from Surprise Visa Setback 🤦♂ Must Change My Nationality To Taiwanese To See My Family Again to Justin Parke's Web3 Blog
